Bearish Goldman of September 17 was super bullish on August 19

Could a structural view of a country change in just one month? This has happened with Goldman Sachs’ views on Indian equities. It had released a report titled ‘Plenty to Play’ on August 19 where it had maintained a positive stance on India, citing it as one of the few countries on a cyclical upswing. Therefore, its latest report on September 17 downgrading India to “market weight” from “overweight” came as a shocker.

The brokerage has cited less favourable risk-reward due to stretched valuation to support its decision to revise weights. Over the past month, the priceearnings premium of Indian market over the emerging market has remained unchanged at 68 per cent while the risk premium of Indian equities rose five basis points to 4.49 per cent, according to Bloomberg. The ‘Plenty to play’ was written by Maximilien Raab and Eliot Camplisson, while the rating downgrade report was authored by Sunil Koul and Timothy Moe. The US-based firm has been overweight on Indian market since 2014.